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This paper aims to investigate dynamics of food consumption practices among poor families in a developing country to advance the Food Well-being (FWB) in Poverty framework.

The research design used semi-structured interviews with 25 women and constructivist grounded theory to explore food consumption practices of poor families in rural South India.

Poor families’ everyday interactions with food reveal the relational production of masculinities and femininities and the power hegemony that fixes men and women into an unequal status quo. Findings provides critical insights into familial arrangements in absolute poverty that are detrimental to the task of achieving FWB.

The explanatory potential of FWB in Poverty framework is limited to a gender (women) and a specific country context (India). Future research can contextualise the framework in other developing countries and different consumer segments.

The FWB in Poverty framework helps identify, challenge and transform cultural norms, social structures and gendered stereotypes that perpetuate power hegemonies in poverty. Policymakers can encourage men and boys to participate in family food work, as well as recognise and remunerate women and girls for their contribution to maintaining familial units.

This paper makes an original contribution to the relevant literature by identifying and addressing the absence of theoretical understanding of families, food consumption and poverty. By contextualising the FWB framework in absolute poverty, the paper generates novel understandings of fluidity and change in poor families and FWB.

The purpose of this paper is to expand the theoretical understanding of social inclusion of vulnerable populations. Employing cross disciplinary literature from marketing and social policy, this paper examines the factors shaping internal migrant workers experience of inclusion and vulnerability in the context of COVID-19 pandemic.

The authors conducted a review of social inclusion and consumer vulnerability literature to develop a new and innovative conceptual framework which operationalises social inclusion. This framework was then examined using an illustrative case study of internal migrant worker crisis in India. Data for the case were collected from various national and international media, government and non-government reports published in English on the pandemic related migrant crisis in India.

Access and control over food was fraught with barriers for migrant workers. As the lockdown progressed, access to and control over work opportunities was precarious. Furthermore, the resource-control constraints faced by migrant workers in terms of food, work and transport had a direct impact on their experience of social inclusion. Lastly, the stranded migrant workers found themselves unable to fully participate in economic activities.

To the authors’ knowledge this is the first paper that integrates consumer vulnerability concept, originating in marketing scholarship into the social inclusion framework. This allowed for anchoring the “aspirational goals” of social inclusion into the concrete context of consumers and marketplaces.

Social media brand pages have become instrumental in enabling customers to voluntarily participate in providing feedback/ideas for improvement and collaboration with others that contribute to the innovation effort of brands. However, research on mechanisms which harness these specific customer engagement behaviours (CEB) in branded social media platforms is limited. Based on the stimulus–organism–response paradigm, this study investigates how specific online-service design characteristics in social media brand pages induce customer-perceived value perceptions, which in turn, stimulate feedback and collaboration intentions with customers.

Data collected from 654 US consumers of brand pages on Facebook were used to empirically test the proposed framework via structural equation modelling.

The theoretical framework found support for most hypothesized relationships showing how online-service design characteristics induce an identified set of customer value perceptions that influence customer feedback and collaboration intentions.

The sample is restricted to customer evaluations of brand pages on Facebook in the USA. Practitioners are advised to maximize online-service design characteristics of content quality, brand page interactivity, sociability and customer contact quality as stimulants that induce brand learning value, entitativity value and hedonic value. This then translates to customer feedback and collaboration intentions towards the brand page.

The findings have important implications for the design and optimization of online services in the customer engagement-innovation interface to harness CEBs for innovation performance.

There is an ongoing debate about the purpose of business and profit maximisation. However, contemporary marketing thinking suggests that pro-social behaviour is a critical aspect of marketing strategy, wherein this type of behaviour leads to marketplace advantage. Amongst the many theories and frameworks (such as, creating shared value and subsistence marketplaces) that re-imagine the purpose of business to include pro-social behaviour, a prominent one is the base of the pyramid (BoP) thesis. This thesis challenges firms to simultaneously alleviate poverty and make a profit by targeting the poorest socioeconomic segment. However, it has encountered robust criticism, with some scholars suggesting a lopsided focus on profits to the detriment of poverty alleviation. Specifically, the criticisms centre on the marketers’ narrow focus on income poverty. In order to overcome these criticisms, as well as to envision a pathway to succeed at the BoP, this chapter makes the case to conceptualise poverty beyond an economic focus of income, assets and wealth to capture beyond economic factors such as equality, justice and freedom. The authors employ Amartya Sen’s capability approach as a starting point to reconceptualise poverty to facilitate marketers to genuinely alleviate poverty whilst making profits at the BoP.

This paper aims to examine how – and whether – members of an industry cluster share knowledge through networking as a means to improving competitive advantage and, in particular, whether trust is present in the knowledge‐sharing process.

The research involved three surveys utilizing a relationship marketing orientation (RMO) that were conducted at intervals (in 2004, 2008 and 2010) in addition to interviews with key cluster members, which were also conducted over a seven‐year period.

Knowledge sharing and integration were found to mediate the relationship between RMO and competitive advantage in 2004 and 2010 but not in 2008. Lower mean scores for trust were also found in 2008.

The limitations are that the respondent numbers were small. It is recommended that one more survey is conducted in 2013 to determine whether the interventions reported here, the recruitment of new cluster staff and the continuing growth of the cluster, influence the comparative results over time.

Knowledge sharing and collaboration within industry clusters requires active and discerning facilitation, particularly where new members are concerned.

The paper adds value to the current research on industry clusters and knowledge sharing as surveys were conducted over a seven‐year period that tracked changes as the cluster grew. The findings highlight the necessity of focusing on member relationships/collaboration during times of growth and change.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the motivations for participating in international trade shows and perceptions of effectiveness and challenges faced by exhibiting firms.

A multiple‐methodology approach is adopted. Initially, interviews are conducted with travel trade exhibitors. These then serve as a foundation for a survey of senior tourism managers.

Exhibitors perceive efficient and effective products/services being displayed on the stand as the central factor for success. The key motivation for participating in travel trade shows is to improve relationships with customers. The primary motivation in participating in specific travel trade shows was influenced by the reputation of the fair, and the key challenge relates to following up leads from the fair.

As the study emphasises tourism and travel, generalising to other trade shows must be done with caution.

The intangible and simultaneous nature of the offering emphasises empathy, responsiveness and reliability of the staff and will affect visitors' perceived service quality of the interaction. Furthermore, an explanation of the various motivations may aid exhibitors in their objectives for participating in travel trade shows.

Although the tourism industry, and consequently travel trade shows, are booming, little research examines the motivations and effectiveness of travel trade from the exhibitor's perspective. Furthermore, the services nature of travel trade shows and its effects on marketing travel trade shows have seen only limited investigation.

This study seeks to draw on the strategy implementation approach and the resource‐based view of the firm (RB theory) to investigate the relationships among competitive strategies (i.e. differentiation and cost‐leadership), responsive market orientation (RMO), proactive market orientation (PMO) and firm performance. The purpose is to show that competitive strategies have a significant effect on market orientation and market orientation has a significant effect on firm performance.

The paper designed a mail‐survey that was sent to senior executives, which resulted in 189 usable surveys. Data were analysed using partial least squares (PLS) to test the hypotheses.

The findings show that both competitive strategies influence RMO and PMO, which then influence firm performance. However, the results show that differentiation strategy has a stronger influence on RMO and PMO than cost‐leadership strategy, and that PMO has a stronger influence on performance than RMO.

The study examined one set of capabilities (RMO and PMO); research opportunities exist for identifying other firm capabilities (e.g. organisational learning) and their relationships with competitive strategies.

Strategy implementation is a valid route to firm performance. Therefore, marketing managers must simultaneously develop competitive strategies and RMO and PMO to obtain increased firm performance outcomes.

The study conceptualises market orientation as RMO and PMO, and suggests that this treatment of market orientation is important in understanding its role in the competitive strategies of firms and consequent firm performance.

This paper aims to examine the effects of market orientation and organizational learning on individual e‐business adoption functions and firm performance in the context of Chinese firms.

A cross‐sectional design was adopted for the study, whereby a sample of companies was selected from the province of Sichuan, China. The questionnaire was distributed via a personally administered method to senior managers. Partial least squares was used for analysing the data.

It was found that market orientation affected e‐order‐taking, whereas organizational learning affected e‐communication, e‐procurement and internal administration through e‐business technologies, and firm performance. Whilst market orientation was found only to effect e‐order‐taking and e‐communication was found to have a positive influence on firm performance.

A limitation of the study is the sample size and obtaining the convenience sample from one province in China. A larger size and broader representation of provinces in China will be a direction for future research.

The findings of this study highlight the need for creating an internal organizational culture, which facilitates the adoption of e‐business technologies. Specifically, they should develop capabilities such as organizational learning and market orientation prior to the adoption of e‐business technologies.

The contribution of the study is that the findings provide insight into e‐business adoption in China from a resource‐based perspective.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the influence of a relationship marketing orientation within a strategic alliance (referred to as the Alliance) to determine whether those firms have achieved synergy in knowledge sharing or whether they operate as knowledge silos.

To achieve this aim the paper takes a strategic perspective and proposes a model based on the resource‐based view of the firm (RBV) in order to discover whether member firms can move Alliance relationships towards knowledge sharing experienced within long‐term and continuing relationships.

The results of this study reveal that intangible assets, such as relationships and knowledge, should be managed by the Alliance with the same care as would be undertaken with tangible assets. Further, the development of a relationship market orientation (RMO) by the Alliance appears to be crucial.

A key limitation of this paper could be considered the sample size (although the response rate was high) and geographical location.

Implications from the study were that, although information and knowledge were being shared, one area of improvement would be in relation to the depth of knowledge sharing that tended to occur on a superficial basis.

The findings are original in terms of knowledge sharing across organizational boundaries. There is currently very little research available that focuses on the influence of an RMO on knowledge sharing within network groups.